"check The Condition Of The Sensor" When In Reverse

TallerMike · August 30, 2007

So when I put the car in reverse, the display shows all red lines straight back behind the car and says "Check the condition of the sensor". It was a hot day out, so I ignored it for a number of hours. When it got cooler (75), it continued. So I looked in the manual, and made sure there was no ice or mud. I washed the sensors in the rear (they appear to be those 4 nickel sized circles on the bumper) and no go. I've searched Yahoo and this forum to no avail. The only post I found said to bring it to the dealer but my '01 is not under warranty by any means. Any thoughts anyone?

When I looked at the sensors, three of them are shiney, and one appears to have a textured black paint on it. Is this normal? Do you have this on your car? I purchased the car used and it was like that when I got it and the sensors worked fine then.

SKperformance · August 30, 2007

I might suggest peeling off the textured pain as it is proably messing up the sensor.

TallerMike · October 12, 2007

So I took it to the dealer and they said that there are 3 sensors on the back, and the one with the textured paint is a dummy sensor, hence why it doesn't look exactly like the others. The reverse sensor is bad, and it will cost $500 to replace it. I told them no thanks for now. It's $150 for the part they said, any idea how hard it is to replace? I'm not sure how to even get in there.

AHJGTA · October 13, 2007

The sensor itself should be very cheap. I got a kit with 3 sensors for $15 about 2-3 years ago. About the same price now but watch out for shipping.

In my humble opinion, to install them you would take out the rear bumper. The wires are soldered to the sensors, Once you get the bumper out, you can push the sensor out. The way I check the sensors in my car is to unplug all except one from the controller and walk around it listening to the beeps.

Judging from the message you are getting, these must be Lexus originals. Pricing at Lexus is at least twice the amount you would pay anywhere else. My guess is that one sensor is as good as another.

Why would anyone put a dummy sensor? Perhaps when you buy the car, you can pay an extra $10,000 for the ultra safety package which includes an extra sensor. If you lease it for 2 years that comes to a negligible $15 / month. Enough bitterness. Now that you will be replacing one of the sensors, might as well put in a working one in the dummy spot.

Good Luck

So I took it to the dealer and they said that there are 3 sensors on the back, and the one with the textured paint is a dummy sensor, hence why it doesn't look exactly like the others. The reverse sensor is bad, and it will cost $500 to replace it. I told them no thanks for now. It's $150 for the part they said, any idea how hard it is to replace? I'm not sure how to even get in there.